This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America(12)

Born in 1789 in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Sara “Saartjie” Baartman experienced great hardship at a young age. Both of her parents died before she reached adulthood, her fiancé was murdered by Dutch colonists, and her child also died. Because Baartman had steatopygia, or extremely large buttocks, she drew the attention of Hendrik Cesars, in whose house she worked as a servant, and Englishman William Dunlop, who sought to capitalize on her body. Legend has it that although Baartman was illiterate, she signed a contract that she would travel with both Cesars and Dunlop to Europe in order to participate in shows. Promoters nicknamed her “Hottentot Venus,” “hottentot” being a derogative term used by the Dutch towards the Khoisan people, an indigenous group of Southern Africa. Besides gawking at her onstage, wealthy people could pay for private exhibitions of her in their homes where they were allowed to touch her. After Baartman died at twenty-six, naturalist Georges Cuvier not only preserved her skeleton, but also pickled her brain and genitals, containing them in jars and displaying them at Paris’s Museum of Man. They remained there until 1974.

We as black women are not afforded ownership over our own identities, our own bodies, the color of our skin and the texture of our hair, and yet white women can appropriate our bodies in order to suit their own selfish desires. bell hooks writes in “Eating the Other” that “. . . ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.” White women’s privilege allows them to do this with little, if any, reproach.

That black women’s bodies are problematic manifests in several flash points, such as hair, but when embodied by white women these flash points are neutralized, even admired. Case in point: Marie Claire praised Kylie Jenner’s “epic” cornrows while black women are still discriminated against in the workplace for wearing such a hairstyle. In February 2013, the international fashion magazine Numéro did an editorial spread called “African Queen,” in which the lily-white model Ondria Hardin was in blackface. Black skin and hair are considered “epic” and regal as long as they are not found on the black female body, because that kind of authenticity is not the kind of beauty that mainstream culture values. A simple Google search for “beautiful women” reveals a proliferation of white women.

Some may ask how we can demonize Dolezal when black women try to “look white,” with weaves that look nothing like their natural hair texture, or blue contacts. The answer is that when there is no equality, there cannot be equivalency. In other words, we cannot judge black and white women in the same way. Although black women are pressured to be as close to the white ideal as possible, they can never call themselves white. There are benefits to looking “respectable”—a chance at getting certain jobs, moving in and out of elite circles, vast networks, and so on—but like a black child who places her face through a cutout on top of a white body at a carnival or amusement park, a black woman with a Russian weave and baby-blue contacts will never be viewed as a white woman. She will be seen as a black woman with a Russian weave and baby-blue contacts. We all know that we cannot identify as something that we can never inherently be.

Dolezal, on the other hand, managed to embody whiteness, white womanhood, in the guise of black womanhood. Only a white woman could pose as a black woman and not be immediately laughed out of town. Rachel Dolezal’s massive media blitz after she was “outed,” everywhere from MSNBC to Vanity Fair, was no accident. Although Dolezal darkened her skin, she still inhabits a white female body and, as such, possesses the privilege to take black female characteristics and subsequently become a newsworthy subject. While actual black women are stigmatized for the bodies that we live in, when Rachel Dolezal attempts to wear our bodies as a kind of costume, she becomes intellectualized. Only a white woman could inspire others to discuss if races can be switched, and when someone like Rachel Dolezal does so, she is protected—even defended. It is true that she was also condemned and mocked, but this backlash was followed with a book deal and massive press junket, not obscurity. Dolezal is not an innovator. She’s just carrying on tradition. In the late nineteenth century, white women wore bustles to make their buttocks look bigger than they were. Hottentot Venus influenced this style, and yet what was natural on her was seen as disgusting; what was artificial on white women was seen as a sign of luxury. The offense does not lie only in the imitation itself, but also in the reception of black women’s body parts, which are only coveted once a white woman decides that she wants them for herself. Black women cannot reappropriate from white women and be equally desired. White women are not pressured to look like anyone else but themselves. Yet when they want to look like black women, they still are seen as both original and acceptable. Under the white gaze, the black body cannot exist without white people encroaching upon our right to be. We are like bendy straws, able to curve and snap depending on a white person’s curiosity. We are not black “people” on our own, but rather the opposite of whiteness. I am beyond questioning if all of this is mere coincidence. Because of history and current pop culture references, it seems as if it’s all by design, which makes the discussions around beauty—who gets to own and determine it—very difficult and painful.



When I was growing up, every black girl I knew had a Barbie—a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfect-white-woman prototype. I hated dolls; their still eyes made me feel like I was always being watched, and I much preferred stuffed animals. Still, I saw girls carrying Barbie everywhere because Barbie was a hot commodity back then. But even more than that, she was a status symbol: a small piece of white luxury available for purchase. If you bought her, you, too, could share in that counterfeit ideal. Why do you think you don’t see many white girls with black dolls? I saw a video online of two white girls having a fit when they received black dolls for Christmas. Black dolls don’t represent beauty, luxury, and perfection. These things are for white girls, not black girls.